One of my favorite comic strips is Zits. The collaboration of Jim Borgman and Jerry Scott chronicles the Duncan Family and their teenage son Jeremy. A recent strip featured Jeremy explaining to his father how to use the various remote controls for the family’s complement of electronic devices. As always, the cartoon captured the essence of the issue; if you want to know how to work high tech stuff find a kid.
Our living room is not unlike most others. We have a TV, a VCR, a cable set top box, a DVD player, a stereo with cassette deck, CD player, radio tuner and even a turntable for any vinyl that may still have life. The problem of course is that each of these components has a different and often non-compatible remote control. Since I installed most of the equipment I don’t have any trouble deciding which remote I need to accomplish the task at hand. My wife, Judy, on the other hand, a very intelligent articulate woman, is sometimes rendered clueless as to how to turn on the TV.
For example, our normal set up includes watching TV from cable. To do this one needs only to turn on the cable box and the TV and you’re home free. That is unless our wonderful friends at Duke Energy have not interrupted our power, even for a short time period. If we lose power, our TV set defaults to Channel 2. For the cable box to work the TV must be tuned to Channel 3 or 4 and the cable remote can’t change the channel on the TV set. Who knew?
To watch a DVD requires one to choose VIDEO #1 on the TV and use the remote for the DVD player. My wife doesn’t even try to watch a DVD. The same plays out for the VHS, the radio the CD player. Heaven forbid if you want the sound from the TV to be played out over the stereo speakers. What are we to do?
One solution, since all three of our sons are living out of town, is to rent a teenage kid. We ruled that out since we can’t afford the food bill. So that brings us to the UNIVERSAL REMOTE. There are several on the market that one can program to handle all the devices from one simple-to-use hand held device. Some actually have a small video screen like a cell phone. Commands are as simple as “Watch Cable” or “Watch DVD” or “Record a Program.” The remote knows what devices are required to accomplish the request and sends signals to all the appropriate devices moving them to the right settings. You can put away all the old remotes and use this single device. Some of Universal Remote Controls require you to have a home computer to program all the settings.
I priced a few models recently. They run from $50 to $300 depending on the features. Seems to me a small price to pay for marital accord, and we can’t afford to feed a teenager.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
A High Tech Shoe Box
I don’t know about you but our family has a ton of pictures that have been taken over the 30+ years since my wife Judy and I walked down the aisle. For most of that time, we, like many others, took our photographs using various types of film cameras. You never knew what you got until you fetched the prints from the drug store. Remember waiting a week and then getting pictures of your thumb or the lens cap? The advent of one-day, and then one-hour, photo developing was truly awesome.
The photos were printed and ended up in albums. Thanks to Judy’s discipline, each kid had an individual album, although our third son’s album is much thinner than his older siblings…but that’s another story. She even chronicled our summer vacations with individual albums. As we got busier and busier, the time needed for sorting and saving the snapshots and placing them in appropriate albums got harder to find. Most ended up being stored in a big shoe box on the top shelf of the hall closet. Periodically we would pull them out when we needed to find a picture or just reminisce, but that was not very often. Of course our filing system was non existent, so finding one special photo was next to impossible. How many T-Ball or Soccer team pictures can one family save? Don’t ask!
About six years ago, like many families, we embraced the digital age of photography. No more running to Walgreens or Kroger, no more trying to find negatives, (for those of you under 21, ask someone what a negative is) no more shoe boxes filled with photos. Is this better? Yes and No… The problem is that the photos are now “virtual” and stored in the computer or on CD discs and/or media cards. In order to see them you need to have a computer. This is really not much better than the shoe box. Perhaps we can call it a high tech shoe box.
I have a possible solution to alleviate at least some of this hassle. It is called the digital picture frame. Perhaps you have seen one in stores or in catalogs. We gave one to each of our kids for Christmas and they seemed to be big hits. With the graduation and wedding season upon us, you, too might find this a good gift idea.
Essentially this device consists of a LCD screen (like the ones found on lap top computers) and a card reader. You store the pictures that you want to view on a small media card and insert the card into the picture frame. The pictures are displayed on the screen. You can set the device to change the picture each minute, each day or each week. Some even play back video clips.
The frames come in various sizes from 5”x 7” up to 10”x 14” and can be placed on a table or on the wall like a traditional picture frame. They do need electrical power so you do need to have a wire connected. They cost between $50 to $200 depending on the size and the clarity of the image.
The photos were printed and ended up in albums. Thanks to Judy’s discipline, each kid had an individual album, although our third son’s album is much thinner than his older siblings…but that’s another story. She even chronicled our summer vacations with individual albums. As we got busier and busier, the time needed for sorting and saving the snapshots and placing them in appropriate albums got harder to find. Most ended up being stored in a big shoe box on the top shelf of the hall closet. Periodically we would pull them out when we needed to find a picture or just reminisce, but that was not very often. Of course our filing system was non existent, so finding one special photo was next to impossible. How many T-Ball or Soccer team pictures can one family save? Don’t ask!
About six years ago, like many families, we embraced the digital age of photography. No more running to Walgreens or Kroger, no more trying to find negatives, (for those of you under 21, ask someone what a negative is) no more shoe boxes filled with photos. Is this better? Yes and No… The problem is that the photos are now “virtual” and stored in the computer or on CD discs and/or media cards. In order to see them you need to have a computer. This is really not much better than the shoe box. Perhaps we can call it a high tech shoe box.
I have a possible solution to alleviate at least some of this hassle. It is called the digital picture frame. Perhaps you have seen one in stores or in catalogs. We gave one to each of our kids for Christmas and they seemed to be big hits. With the graduation and wedding season upon us, you, too might find this a good gift idea.
Essentially this device consists of a LCD screen (like the ones found on lap top computers) and a card reader. You store the pictures that you want to view on a small media card and insert the card into the picture frame. The pictures are displayed on the screen. You can set the device to change the picture each minute, each day or each week. Some even play back video clips.
The frames come in various sizes from 5”x 7” up to 10”x 14” and can be placed on a table or on the wall like a traditional picture frame. They do need electrical power so you do need to have a wire connected. They cost between $50 to $200 depending on the size and the clarity of the image.
Monday, April 16, 2007
High Tech Sleuths Are All Around Us
When the US Department of Defense developed and launched the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system back in the early 1980s, I am sure that they did not foresee that this system would some day provide hours and hours of recreation for thousands on people of all ages as they took up the hobby of “geocaching.”
The GPS system was first developed to aid the military to precisely navigate. It uses a series of satellites that continuously broadcast a special radio signal that contains a time signature. Each of the 30 GPS satellites situated in orbit above the earth broadcast the same time signature. If your GPS receiver can simultaneously access the signals from at least three of these satellites, it can plot your current position on earth. The GPS receiver calculates how long it takes for the radio signal to arrive from each of the three satellites. You might remember from High School Physics that radio waves travel at the 186,000 miles per second, so each of the time signatures will arrive at the GPS receiver at a slightly different time. Using this information and mathematic calculations, the GPS receiver plots your current position.
This is the same system that is used in some cars to tell you how to get to Aunt Ida’s house for the Memorial Day picnic. It is also the system that in an emergency is used by some cell phones to tell the 911 Operator where you are located. And it is the system that allows people to take up the hobby of geocaching.
I have to admit I was ignorant of this geocaching phenomenon until my sister-in-law, a person prone to try just about anything, introduced me to its nuances. A number of years ago my wife, knowing that I love all things electronic, gave me a hand held GPS unit for my birthday. We used it sparingly on car trips and a few times on some long distance bike trips, but for the most part it lived a very sheltered life in the glove box of my car. When my sister-in law found out I had a GPS, she borrowed it and has been geocaching ever since.
Beginning in about the year 2000, people began hiding small “caches” throughout the United States. The cache might be a plastic container or a small metal box. Some are as tiny as a 35mm film container or as large as a loaf of bread. Inside the container will be a log for you to sign when you find it and perhaps a few trinkets to share with the kids. The person hiding the cache makes a note of the longitude and latitude of the location using a GPS receiver to find the coordinates. The locations of these caches i.e., latitude and longitude, are then posted on the web site www.geocaching.com .
Some caches have “travel bugs,” that look like dog tags. Cachers are asked to move them on to other caches to see how long it takes to travel to various destinations. Some are called shutter bugs and contain a tagged disposable camera. Finders are asked to take a picture of their group and return the camera to the cache.
If you go to the web site and type in the zip code for Harrison (45030) you will find the coordinates for more than 1000 caches hidden right under our eyes. I am told that they are always located on public property, i.e., parks, school yards, library grounds etc.
This is a hobby for all ages. There are also geocaching clubs. The local one is Ohio Kentucky Indiana Cachers, www.okic.org. Geocaching provides a great opportunity for entire families to get some exercise, practice some math and science and have a great time looking for caches. All you need is time, a GPS receiver, and some good eyes.
The GPS system was first developed to aid the military to precisely navigate. It uses a series of satellites that continuously broadcast a special radio signal that contains a time signature. Each of the 30 GPS satellites situated in orbit above the earth broadcast the same time signature. If your GPS receiver can simultaneously access the signals from at least three of these satellites, it can plot your current position on earth. The GPS receiver calculates how long it takes for the radio signal to arrive from each of the three satellites. You might remember from High School Physics that radio waves travel at the 186,000 miles per second, so each of the time signatures will arrive at the GPS receiver at a slightly different time. Using this information and mathematic calculations, the GPS receiver plots your current position.
This is the same system that is used in some cars to tell you how to get to Aunt Ida’s house for the Memorial Day picnic. It is also the system that in an emergency is used by some cell phones to tell the 911 Operator where you are located. And it is the system that allows people to take up the hobby of geocaching.
I have to admit I was ignorant of this geocaching phenomenon until my sister-in-law, a person prone to try just about anything, introduced me to its nuances. A number of years ago my wife, knowing that I love all things electronic, gave me a hand held GPS unit for my birthday. We used it sparingly on car trips and a few times on some long distance bike trips, but for the most part it lived a very sheltered life in the glove box of my car. When my sister-in law found out I had a GPS, she borrowed it and has been geocaching ever since.
Beginning in about the year 2000, people began hiding small “caches” throughout the United States. The cache might be a plastic container or a small metal box. Some are as tiny as a 35mm film container or as large as a loaf of bread. Inside the container will be a log for you to sign when you find it and perhaps a few trinkets to share with the kids. The person hiding the cache makes a note of the longitude and latitude of the location using a GPS receiver to find the coordinates. The locations of these caches i.e., latitude and longitude, are then posted on the web site www.geocaching.com .
Some caches have “travel bugs,” that look like dog tags. Cachers are asked to move them on to other caches to see how long it takes to travel to various destinations. Some are called shutter bugs and contain a tagged disposable camera. Finders are asked to take a picture of their group and return the camera to the cache.
If you go to the web site and type in the zip code for Harrison (45030) you will find the coordinates for more than 1000 caches hidden right under our eyes. I am told that they are always located on public property, i.e., parks, school yards, library grounds etc.
This is a hobby for all ages. There are also geocaching clubs. The local one is Ohio Kentucky Indiana Cachers, www.okic.org. Geocaching provides a great opportunity for entire families to get some exercise, practice some math and science and have a great time looking for caches. All you need is time, a GPS receiver, and some good eyes.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Come here Watson, I am confused
When Alex beckoned his colleague in the next room to come and give him a hand, little did he know that his voice carried over that wire would reverberate well into the next century. Since it’s inception in the late 1800’s the phone system and phones themselves have changed little. Sure they got clearer, sported colors (remember that ugly green) and rotary dials gave way to push buttons. Nevertheless the basic system, running separate individual wires (party lines aside) from each phone back to a central phone company office remained the same. We all accepted this with almost blind obedience. In fact many were afraid to even add an extension phone in the bedroom or den without getting permission (and a bill) from Mother Bell.
This all seems quaint now. Wired phones are throw-away items purchased at K-Mart. Phones with caller ID, message recorders and hands-free wireless features can be purchased for far less than a tank of gas.
Many wonder if it is time to sever the entire relationship with the “Good Mother” and sign up for digital phone service from the cable company or another carrier such as Vonage®. Here are a few things to consider:
How reliable is your electric power at your home? It seems that where I live in Harrison Twp., the VCR clock is forever announcing a disruption in Duke’s service. Cincinnati Bell provides the most robust service since they do not rely on the electrical power at your house to provide basic phone service. In a power outage, in most cases your Cincinnati Bell phone line will continue to be operational and the Cable provided phone service will not. You have to decide if this is a big deal. For me, since my mobile phone works just fine at home, I can still place a call even if my wired phone is not working. If I lived in an outlying area with sparse cell coverage this would be a bigger deal.
So if you decide to sever your relationship with Cincinnati Bell, should you go with Time Warner Digital Phone or one of the other providers like Vonage®? Well for sure the easiest, if you already have cable service from Time Warner, is to go with them. They take care of setting everything up and making the changes to your wired phones in your home.
Vonage®, apart from having that catchy jingle on the TV, provides a good service but it requires a bit more “work” on your part. You need to buy the equipment which is easily obtained from several electronic retailers. You must already have a broadband connection to the Internet at your home. You need to make the connections in your home, severing the wires from the Cincinnati Bell line and connecting them to the new Vonage® box. I think you get the picture…all the stuff that Time Warner will do for you, you end up doing for yourself. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but if you are adroit with all things electronic, go for it. You will save a few bucks. If you don’t want to, or feel confident, messing with these things, go with the cable company.
One last thing, make sure that if you move from a hard wired Cincinnati Bell line that you make sure you set up the 911 options. Time Warner does this for you but the Vonage® service requires you to do some configuring.
Will you save money? Once all the signing discounts and other incentives go away, a single line from Cincinnati Bell runs about the same as one from Time Warner. The savings come from signing up for a package deal, i.e., TV, home and mobile phone service and Internet access. By my calculations the Bell and Cable services end up costing about the same. You need to compare for yourself based on your needs and calling patterns.
This all seems quaint now. Wired phones are throw-away items purchased at K-Mart. Phones with caller ID, message recorders and hands-free wireless features can be purchased for far less than a tank of gas.
Many wonder if it is time to sever the entire relationship with the “Good Mother” and sign up for digital phone service from the cable company or another carrier such as Vonage®. Here are a few things to consider:
How reliable is your electric power at your home? It seems that where I live in Harrison Twp., the VCR clock is forever announcing a disruption in Duke’s service. Cincinnati Bell provides the most robust service since they do not rely on the electrical power at your house to provide basic phone service. In a power outage, in most cases your Cincinnati Bell phone line will continue to be operational and the Cable provided phone service will not. You have to decide if this is a big deal. For me, since my mobile phone works just fine at home, I can still place a call even if my wired phone is not working. If I lived in an outlying area with sparse cell coverage this would be a bigger deal.
So if you decide to sever your relationship with Cincinnati Bell, should you go with Time Warner Digital Phone or one of the other providers like Vonage®? Well for sure the easiest, if you already have cable service from Time Warner, is to go with them. They take care of setting everything up and making the changes to your wired phones in your home.
Vonage®, apart from having that catchy jingle on the TV, provides a good service but it requires a bit more “work” on your part. You need to buy the equipment which is easily obtained from several electronic retailers. You must already have a broadband connection to the Internet at your home. You need to make the connections in your home, severing the wires from the Cincinnati Bell line and connecting them to the new Vonage® box. I think you get the picture…all the stuff that Time Warner will do for you, you end up doing for yourself. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but if you are adroit with all things electronic, go for it. You will save a few bucks. If you don’t want to, or feel confident, messing with these things, go with the cable company.
One last thing, make sure that if you move from a hard wired Cincinnati Bell line that you make sure you set up the 911 options. Time Warner does this for you but the Vonage® service requires you to do some configuring.
Will you save money? Once all the signing discounts and other incentives go away, a single line from Cincinnati Bell runs about the same as one from Time Warner. The savings come from signing up for a package deal, i.e., TV, home and mobile phone service and Internet access. By my calculations the Bell and Cable services end up costing about the same. You need to compare for yourself based on your needs and calling patterns.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Why does Max have a blue tooth?
Just when you think you have a handle on all the technical jargon it seems that a bevy of new words and acronyms surface. Time was when these terms were relegated to the pocket protector set. Today, newspaper and TV ads, signs in stores and casual conversations at the coffee shop can be peppered with strange words. This week we will look into three terms that seem to come up often. They are: WiFi, WiMax and Bluetooth®.
Let’s start with WiFi, a system that transmits data through the air over short distances to and from a computer or other digital device using radio waves. It essentially works the same way that your wireless home phone works. In the case of the phone, there is a base station that plugs into your “Ma Bell” phone line that has a small low power transmitter/receiver that sends and receives the phone conversation to and from the phone handset. Similarly, WiFi allows you to use your computer on the Internet without hard wiring it to the computer modem. The signals can travel only short distances so you can’t be more than about 200 ft. or so from the WiFi transmitter. In most cities and towns there a several WiFi spots including the coffee shops, libraries and gas stations. With a WiFi enabled computer or other device you can sip your coffee and email your kids at the same time. Some WiFi services are free; others require a subscription or hourly fee. With WiFi several people share the same high speed Internet connection. Many people have home systems set up, the grist for a future column.
WiMax is an emerging technology that offers the same features as WiFi, but has a much wider coverage area. Unlike WiFi, transmitters that have coverage over an area of about 200 ft radius, WiMax signals can cover several square miles. This technology promises to be a real boon to wireless computer use. While not truly WiMax, several companies like Verizon and Sprint offer a wireless service for your lap top or other digital device that provides fast connection to the Internet but these speeds are only about one third to one half the speeds possible with WiFi and WiMax. Also many have "dead spots" in coverage.
The more colorful term Bluetooth® refers to wirelessly connecting digital devices over very short distances, only a few feet or so. The most popular are the “Borg-like” wireless head phones that are increasingly found hanging from the ears of people walking on downtown streets seemingly talking to themselves. In the olden days we thought these people were just “a few fries short of a happy meal,” now we spy the little ear piece and we know they are just “cool.”
You can find Bluetooth® enabled devices in cameras, allowing you to wirelessly connect to printers, in cars connected to mobile phones, and in a host of other applications where wires just get in the way.
For sure as we to continue on this digital highway more and more devices will be released from the tether of wires and rely on these and other wireless technologies.
Let’s start with WiFi, a system that transmits data through the air over short distances to and from a computer or other digital device using radio waves. It essentially works the same way that your wireless home phone works. In the case of the phone, there is a base station that plugs into your “Ma Bell” phone line that has a small low power transmitter/receiver that sends and receives the phone conversation to and from the phone handset. Similarly, WiFi allows you to use your computer on the Internet without hard wiring it to the computer modem. The signals can travel only short distances so you can’t be more than about 200 ft. or so from the WiFi transmitter. In most cities and towns there a several WiFi spots including the coffee shops, libraries and gas stations. With a WiFi enabled computer or other device you can sip your coffee and email your kids at the same time. Some WiFi services are free; others require a subscription or hourly fee. With WiFi several people share the same high speed Internet connection. Many people have home systems set up, the grist for a future column.
WiMax is an emerging technology that offers the same features as WiFi, but has a much wider coverage area. Unlike WiFi, transmitters that have coverage over an area of about 200 ft radius, WiMax signals can cover several square miles. This technology promises to be a real boon to wireless computer use. While not truly WiMax, several companies like Verizon and Sprint offer a wireless service for your lap top or other digital device that provides fast connection to the Internet but these speeds are only about one third to one half the speeds possible with WiFi and WiMax. Also many have "dead spots" in coverage.
The more colorful term Bluetooth® refers to wirelessly connecting digital devices over very short distances, only a few feet or so. The most popular are the “Borg-like” wireless head phones that are increasingly found hanging from the ears of people walking on downtown streets seemingly talking to themselves. In the olden days we thought these people were just “a few fries short of a happy meal,” now we spy the little ear piece and we know they are just “cool.”
You can find Bluetooth® enabled devices in cameras, allowing you to wirelessly connect to printers, in cars connected to mobile phones, and in a host of other applications where wires just get in the way.
For sure as we to continue on this digital highway more and more devices will be released from the tether of wires and rely on these and other wireless technologies.
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